CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Interview

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COOPER: Well, let's talk about that with former Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont.

Senator Sanders, thanks for being with us.

Have you -- have Democrats become radicalized?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Well, I think what Democrats are increasingly trying to do is represent the middle class and working families and not the billionaire class or the 1 percent. When you have a president who attempted with the Republican leadership to throw 32 million Americans off the health care that they have, we stood up and we fought back.

And when you have a president who gave a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and then, Anderson, came back with a budget that would cut Medicaid by a trillion, Medicare by $500 billion, the Social Security Disability Fund by $72 billion over a ten-year period, yes, we stood up and we fought back.

COOPER: But the president points to --

SANDERS: And if that is considered to be -- I'm sorry.

COOPER: Sorry. The president points to a booming economy, although he doesn't point to it very often, he's talking about other things. But his administration will point to a booming economy, to record low unemployment among large swaths of the population, among many different groups.

SANDERS: Well, that's true, and there's also very low unemployment in Germany, very low unemployment in Japan, Canada has the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years, as does the United Kingdom. The world, most of the major countries of the world are rebounding from the terrible depression or recession from 2008 when Wall Street crashed.

But here is the other reality, which Trump and his friends don't talk about, and that is the 30 million people in America do not have any health insurance and even more are underinsured. That we've got tens of millions of workers in this country trying to get by on $9, $10, $11 an hour and these guys, not only do they not want to raise the minimum wage, you have Larry Kudlow talking about how the minimum wage itself is a bad idea.

You have these guys not even recognizing the reality of climate change and working hand in glove with the fossil fuel industry to put more carbon into the atmosphere when we have to transform our energy system. So I think having said all of that, what this election is really about is whether we feel comfortable, Anderson, having a president who is a pathological liar, who lies every day about every imaginable thing.

And whether we as Americans are comfortable about having a president who is trying to divide us up, divide us up based on the color of our skin or the country that we came from or our sexual orientation or our religion. And Ultimately, I don't think the American people want us to move in that direction.

COOPER: If Democrats --

SANDERS: This is the most -- I'm sorry.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: If Democrats take the House, if Democrats take the House, do you want to see them go for impeachment? Because, you know, there are plenty of Democrats who say, look, that's not a wise move.

SANDERS: This is what I want Democrats to do, if I have anything to say about it, this is what I'm going to push. I want to raise that minimum wage today from a starvation minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to 15 bucks an hour so working people can live with dignity.

[20:25:01] I want to lower the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs.

I want us moving forward toward Medicare for all. And the first phrase of that concept is to lower the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 55.

And I want us to begin moving boldly to address the global crisis of climate change.

Those are some of the things that I want to see us do immediately.

COOPER: All right. Senator Sanders, I appreciate your time.

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